The present invention relates to a dispenser system using a binary array of dispensers, for dispensation and mixing of selected small volumes of active agents.
There are many materials intended for home or industrial use that are not used to completion. Such materials, when containing hazardous materials such as solvents, reactive resins and the like, require special disposal treatment. A particular example of such a material is paint. Industries using such materials generally have sufficient disposal procedures in place to insure that hazardous materials such as solvent based paints do not enter landfills, but are properly disposed of. Such is generally not true for waste paint generated by home owners, model makers, and artists, where quantities of waste paint may be disposed of with other domestic wastes. Also, industrial users typically have procedures to insure the efficient utilization of paint and resins, so that waste is minimized, while for domestic users, it is often the case that a large portion of the material is wasted. This waste is due in part to the large minimum size of the cans of paint that are commercially available, especially with paints having custom colors. This is in part due to errors in color selection, and in part to poor sealing of partially used paint cans. There is therefore a need for small quantities of materials such as paints that minimize waste.
A large portion of the time invested in painting is often associated with color selection. Colors are generally selected from books containing small color chips. A visit to a paint supplier is then needed to obtain a quantity of paint mixed by the supplier to the selected color. When this paint is applied to a surface considerably larger than the color chip, it is often found that the color now seems too dark or too light, or has some other aesthetic deficiency. This results in the waste of the initial quantity of paint, at well as wasting time in obtaining more paint for a second try. Time and paint would both be saved if the painter could conveniently and accurately mix a small amount of the desired color himself, saving trips to the supplier, and minimizing wasted paint.
In mixing colorants into paints, paint suppliers must open the container to introduce colorants. Errors in dispensing of the proper dose of colorant occur, as well as spillage from improperly resealed containers. A system that introduced factory-measured doses of colorants into a sealed container would therefore be desirable.
The range of paint colors that may be selected from a chip book is necessarily small, limited by the size and cost constraints of the book. A system that would allow greater freedom of color selection to the painter while eliminating the need for chip books would be of great utility.
The prior art is replete with various types of devices for dispensing either individual doses or multiple doses of fluids or solid pellets. Representative devices are shown for example in U.S. Pat. No. 3,780,856, which discloses a square array of blister dispensers, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,403,074, and 2,768,623, which disclose various manually operated dosage forms for dispensing an individual fluid pulse, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,736,933, 4,111,304 and 4,522,622 which disclose devices which can be used to dispense a multiplicity of fluid pulses, all of which are herein entirely incorporated by reference.
It is known to cover push-through forms of packaging, so called blister packs, with a layer that covers, and is sealed onto, the whole surface area and serves as the lid for the blister pack. The blister pack features one or more individual containers formed into a flexible layer, each of which holds a dose to be dispensed. These doses are most typically, shaped solid preparations or pharmaceutical products such as tablets, but may also be liquids. Generally, the material of the covering layer is of aluminum foil or a laminate of which aluminum is a component part. Aluminum foil is a preferred material for the lidding layer on blister packs as relatively little force is required to break the foil at the thickness chosen for this purpose, the energy required for this is small and the aluminum exhibits essentially no elasticity. Other friable materials may be used, especially polymeric materials containing large additions of filler as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,522,506, the teachings of which are entirely incorporated herein by reference. As a rule the flexible container portion of the blister pack is of plastic such as, e.g. PVC, polyamide, polyolefin, polyethylene-terephthalates and composites containing at least one of these materials, if desired also aluminum foil. The use of blister packs in binary arrays and the advantages accruing thereby have not previously been appreciated.
When beverages are served in disposable containers having lids, adding sweeteners and creamers and the like necessitates removal of the lid, risking spillage, a risk that is accentuated in moving vehicles. A beverage lid with built in dispensers would therefore be desirable, as mixing could then be accomplished without opening the container.
Accordingly, I claim the following as objects and advantages of the invention: to provide a paint colorant system employing a binary array that reduces the amount of wasted paint by allowing the end user to accurately mix a small quantity paint in a wide range of potential colors.
It is another object of this invention to provide a paint colorant system which provides for the user a simple system for mixing small amounts of paint to a wide range of colors without recourse to a commercial paint distributor.
Another object of this invention is to provide a paint colorant system whereby color reference chips may be stored on a computer.
Another object of this invention is to provide a dispensing system capable of producing a large number of different dose levels.
Another object of this invention is to provide a closed mixing system that is resistant to spillage.
Another object of this invention is to provide a binary array capable of producing more dose levels than an arithmetic array.
Yet another object of this invention is to provide a convenient, spill resistant disposable beverage dispenser lid, capable of multiple dose levels.